Nelson McCausland MLA
(Democratic Unionist Party - Constituency: North Belfast).
A personal blog in which I comment on a wide variety of issues, political, cultural, social, historical and religious. If something takes my attention, then I may well comment on it.

Friday, 22 November 2013

DUP conference speech 2013 (3)

Building strong and successful communities

Finally, I turn to my commitment to building strong,
successful, vibrant communities.Across
Northern Ireland there are some communities that have been consigned to a
future of decay and failure.Yes
government, through initiatives such as neighbourhood renewal provides funding
but this, I firmly believe, does not tackle the fundamental issues which are at
the root of the problem and the approach is often piecemeal. Neighbourhood
renewal has some fantastic success stories but for others the problem has just
been, at best, kept at bay by such funding. There are those living in such
communities who yearn that something – anything is done to make their lives
better.I firmly believe these communities
can be turned around.

At the end of October I announced six areas where we are
going to take what for Northern Ireland will be an innovative approach.These are areas that have been blighted by
dereliction and decay, with empty houses that are boarded up and land that lies
derelict and undeveloped. These problems drag a community down, becoming
magnets for anti-social behaviour and dumping. They blight the lives of the
residents, creating despair and they are a lost opportunity.These same areas suffer from high levels of
educational deprivation with many families being economically inactive.These same areas typically suffer from
exploitation from loan sharks and pay day loan companies.They are in a spiral of decline with the
communities dying and no one could be expected to want to move into these areas
and set up home.I want to change this,
I want it to involve each of the relevant government departments and I am
pleased that ministers across the Executive have responded and nominated lead
officials in their respective departments.Right now local community forums are being established and work is being
taken forward by an assigned official from DSD.

Those derelict sites provide an opportunity to address
housing need and an opportunity for affordable housing as well as social
housing, thereby removing blight providing new homes.But that is only part of the answer.We need to think about such areas in a
coherent and comprehensive way, looking at opportunities for social economy
businesses that can create employment opportunities.

I also want to do something about the very real issue caused
by Loan Sharks and Pay Day Loan companies preying on the most
vulnerable.Whilst this is presently a
problem largely isolated to larger deprived urban communities, if not dealt
with it will quickly spread across Northern Ireland.We have to do something which tackles the
issue of affordable credit being inaccessible, in particular for families for
whom the traditional banks have nothing to offer.That is the only way we will stop
paramilitary organisations and pay day loans preying on these families.

My department is currently looking at ways in which the
credit union movement can be given assistance to aid them further in their
commitment to serve low-income and financially excluded households and yet in a
recent report, only 7% of credit unions surveyed said
that ‘serving members who are financially excluded or living on welfare
benefits’ is their primary purpose.We
also know that although 34% of the Northern Ireland population are members of
credit unions, only 4% of NIHE tenants have a credit union account.

Therefore conference, I am about to take forward a piece of
work which would examine the potential for establishing a government backed
‘Peoples Bank’ scheme which could provide more affordable credit to financially
excluded households, households which are even out of the reach of credit
unions.I believe that some of our local
housing associations would be ideally placed to partner us in such a venture.

The development of financial management skills is essential
for any family wanting to lift itself out of poverty.Such a scheme would have, as part of its
offering, advisors who will work with such families and help them build up
these essential life skills.This will
no doubt be a risky venture for government to take forward, and we can learn
from such ventures currently in place in Great Britain. It will require careful
scoping and planning but something must be done to tackle this issue.

We have achieved much in the first half of this mandate but
there is so much more to be done if we are to build the strong successful and
vibrant communities that we all want to see.Already the DUP is the party that is working hard for Northern Ireland
and it is well able to meet the challenge.